Rating: Excellent Renew Your Mind blurb excerpt: As the blurb implies this book is “The essential guide to rewiring your brain so that you lead a rich and rewarding life, feeling energized, healthy, and happy.”
In summary, this book provides a gentle, life-changing approach to achieving:
Reduced stress and anxiety
Greater mental health
Increased productivity
Fulfilling relationships
Happiness
My opinion: This is a great executive summary of some really powerful psychological practices and is definitely a really good book. Perhaps one of the Best Personal Development Books in the psychology space. It eloquently blends neuroscience with practical, real-life examples, and easy-to-implement strategies. My only critique is that it touched on a variety of topics and principles without exploring many of them at a deeper level. However, they do say that simplicity is the ultimate form of sophistication so perhaps there is merit to this approach.
Lessons from Renew Your Mind:
My key learnings are by no means a reflection of the book's entire content. Rather some personal takeaways.
Green, Orange, Red Brain:
Red Brain, The state of stress. Activated when the mind perceives a threat and activates the fight-or-flight response. Physical effects include tunnel vision, shallow breathing, slowed digestion, increased blood pressure, increased blood sugar and increased heart rate, suppressed immune system, and tensed muscles. Psychological effects include judgemental and black-and-white thinking, feeling stressed, narrow or fixed point of view, disconnection from others, lost ability to think creatively, be flexible and see other perspectives, overlooking information, decreased compassion, and empathy, emotion-driven responses.
Orange Brain, The state of achieving, aka the go-go-go state. The orange brain doesn’t have the negative symptoms of the red brain or the benefits of the green brain.
Green Brain, The ideal everyday brain in which stress hormones cortisol and adrenaline are reduced and the relationship hormone oxytocin is released. Physical effects include wide vision and flexible attention, deep and slow breathing, optimal digestion, reduced blood pressure, stable blood sugar, and heart rate, optimal immune function, and relaxed muscles. Psychological effects include non-judgemental thinking, feeling calm and in control, seeing the bigger picture, increased kindness and empathy, mental flexibility and perspective thinking, improved health, creative problem-solving, effective communication.
What is Mindfulness?
Paying attention with kindness. Mindfulness has two main components: Attention and attitude.
Attention: When your mind wanders to the past or the future you cannot be present. This is an issue as the only time you can influence is the present.
Attitude: You observe the facts of whatever situation you are in, without arguing or telling yourself things should be different. Taking the judgment out of your thoughts allows you to remain “green brained”
Regular Mindfulness can reduce stress, anxiety, depression, blood pressure, OCD symptoms, substance abuse, PTSD symptoms, impulsivity, inflammation. It can also increase compassion, emotion regulation, productivity, enjoyment of food, self-compassion, creativity, general wellbeing.
Example: Mindfulness of the senses:
Focus on the breath. Notice what it feels like to breathe in and out. Notice this without giving your opinion, or wanting to change anything. Simply feel the air and notice what happens in your body as you breathe in and out. If your thoughts wander off, notice this. Then, in a kind and gentle way, bring your attention back to your breath.
Focus on what you hear. Observe and describe this, either in your mind or out loud. Do this in a kind, neutral and non-judgemental way, without labeling or giving your opinion. Simply describe the sounds you hear.
Repeat the above step for what you see, feel, taste, and smell.
Emotions:
There are four basic emotions, not all of which are pleasant but they are necessary.
Anger
Fear
Sadness
Happiness
Every other emotion we experience falls under one of the above four.
Your emotions are not there to make your life harder; your emotions are in part designed to be your internal GPS system. They are the ‘voice’ that draws your attention to whatever your brain thinks needs your attention and informs your decision-making.
The green brain approach to emotions is to accept them, validate them, and listen to what they are there to tell you. When you approach emotions this way, you can respond to them rather than react our of emotion-driven impulse.*Reminder: The Emotional Balloon
When you experience an emotion there are three options. The emotion can:
Become stuck. When emotions become stuck, you cannot move on from whatever experience triggered that emotion; both your brain and your body remain in a fixed state.
Be suppressed. The suppressed emotions that you have learned to close off do not just disappear; they are transported from the conscious to the subconscious.
Be processed. When you process an emotion your brain works through what happened, then stores the information in the library of your brain in a neat and orderly way. Then the event becomes a memory, not an emotion.
Conscious and Subconscious Brain.
Your brain requires a lot of energy to operate, so it seeks to conserve energy by using efficient ways of operating. One way it does this is through conscious and subconscious processing.
The subconscious mind. The subconscious brain takes care of the fight-or-flight response and learned behaviors and habits.
The conscious mind. The things that happen in your conscious mind are the things you are aware of right now.
Acknowledge – Link – Let Go.
The three steps to processing emotions.
Acknowledge. Your brain cannot process something that you do not acknowledge. One way of acknowledging your emotion is by simply saying ‘hello’ to it. “Hello anger”. The process of acknowledging it in this manner separates you from the emotion.
Link. Link the emotion to the event that caused it. In other words, you are responding to the internal smoke alarm by examining what has set it off. Thus, the emotion has fulfilled its purpose, and now that your attention is focused on what your brain is “warning you about” it can turn down the signal. An easy way to link is to say to the emotion “It makes perfect sense that you are here, given then situation …”
Let Go. When you let go you are not saying that what happened was okay or that you will let it happen again. You are letting go of the emotions so your brain can store them in the library and you can move on or respond to the trigger more effectively.
Let go by:
Placing one hand on your chest and one hand on your stomach
Take a deep breath in
As you breathe out, relax and drop your shoulders
Say or think “I let it go”
Repeat
Now that the emotion is processed and you are in the green brain, this is the perfect time for creative problem-solving. Simply ask yourself “what would help” or “What small step can I take to make this situation better”
Mirror – Link – Pause
Mindfully processing another’s emotions.
Mirror the facial expression and body posture of the other person. Acknowledge their emotion by saying something like “I can see that you feel very …”
Link that emotion to the trigger “What happened? , tell me more” Use clean language to mention the trigger as they described it
Pause for a few seconds.
Example:
Dad: Son, I can see that you are very angry (Mirror)
Son: Yes I am!
Dad: What happened? (Link)
Son: Johny took my toy!
Dad: He took your toy.
Son: Yes!
Dad: I understand that would make you angry (Link and Pause)
Dad: But we don’t hit other kids. If this happens again we’ll need to go home (Boundary Setting) Son: I’m sorry
Dad: Okay
CBT Model Quote “Events lead to thoughts, thoughts lead to feelings, feelings to behaviours, and behaviours have consequences. It’s not the events themselves that determine how we feel and behave, it is the thoughts you have about these events that trigger the sequence of feelings, behaviours, and consequences”
Cognitive Dissonance: When you believe A, you will act according to A and look for evidence of A. When faced with evidence of B instead, internal mental stress will result. Your brain always seeks to eliminate mental stress so it will either ignore the evidence for B or if the evidence is strong enough, it will change belief from A to B to confirm the thought to the reality and therefore eliminate the mental stress.
Mindful affirmations: A mantra or mindful affirmation is an effective tool to help train your mind to have more green-brain thoughts.
Example given;
“I am kind and non-judgemental, open, curious, and confident. I stop arguing with the facts and I accept what is so I can free my mind to make the change I want to make.
I eat good food and take good care of my body. I sleep well and take time to rest and have fun. I am aware of my body and I appreciate it and what it does for me.
I choose to be aware and conscious and take time every day to be in the here and now. I choose to be mindful of my emotions and process them instead of suppressing them or becoming stuck in them.
I am aware of my thinking, and that it’s not the events by my thoughts that cause me stress. I turn my stressful thoughts around and choose thoughts that are helpful to me.
I let go of things that hold me back, I accept what has happened and I let it go so I can be free.
I am grateful for my life and the people in it. I keep my goals in mind and I confidently in the direction of my dreams”
Blockages to flow:
The most common blockages to entering or remaining in a state of flow are:
Trying
An imbalance between skills and challenges
Negative thoughts or feelings
Solution Triangle:
The green-brained or mindful version of the drama triangle.
Vulnerable – awareness without judgment, openness
Caring – Compassion, supporting without taking over responsibility
Assertive – Taking healthy actions, setting clear boundaries
Internal vs External Locus of Control:
Internal: You make things happen
I determine the outcome
I have influence over things
If I don’t like something I can change it
My environment is a product of my influence
External Locus of Control: Things happen to you
The outcome depends on the situation
I have very little influence over things
If I don’t like something there is little I can do about it
I am a product of my environment
Three forms of attachment in children:
Secure attachment. The child feels safe, accepted, and free to explore and make mistakes because they trust that their caregiver will be there for them in times of need.
Insecure attachment. The caregiver is unpredictably or conditionally responsive to the child’s needs. A child who is insecurely attached is more likely to feel angry, anxious, or ambivalent in relationships and will have a tendency to both seek and resist contact.
Avoidant attachment. Develops with a caregiver consistently does not respond to the needs of the child. A child with an avoidant attachment avoids disappointment and upset by no longer seeking closeness. They stay close enough to the parent to maintain protection but distant enough to avoid rejection.
Renew Your Mind Best Quotes;
“Processing emotions helps move you from reactive to responsive”
“Working from a state of stress is like driving your car with the handbrake on: you might get from A to B, but it takes a lot of effort and in the long run does damage”
“An unstable mind is like an unstable camera: you get a fuzzy picture”
“Mindfulness is brain manipulation for a good cause”
“The word happiness would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness”
“Replace ever “need” in your thoughts with “would like to” and see what happens”
“People with more positive thoughts are not only happier, but they also tend to have more success in life because their brain is better wired to learn, build skills and utilise resources, which makes them better at what they do”
What Next:
If you are interested in this book, you may want to check out our list of reviewed Personal Development Books.
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